Thank heaven for little boys…

My sweet Donny boy turned 4 this week. It was a bitter-sweet day for me… my baby is growing up so fast! And yet, it seems like an eternity since I brought him home from the hospital. I love that he is growing up. I love his attempt at using big words and his attempt at telling jokes (which never have a punchline). He is such a gentleman and MUST hold the door open for anyone/everyone no matter where we are, and he cracks me up when he constantly gives out these compliments to everyone around him. His friend was over the other day and he says “Ty, you look REALLY COOL today!” or he’ll tell me I did a great job on something or tell Shey she looks pretty or cute. He is my ball of energy that drives me crazy most of the time, but has this special place in my heart that I hope never ever goes away.

The day started of with the traditional sprinkle pancakes.

This was definitely a hit, as he LOVES pancakes, and he was so excited to get a number 4 pancake for his special day. Then he had gymnastics during the day and got a lot of extra tv time on top of that. He decided to go to Pizza Pie Cafe for his birthday dinner… it is a pizza buffet. Luckily, they have a salad bar, too, so I was able to eat something! We had a fun time and afterwards came home and ate cupcakes that Shey decorated and opened gifts. He had a fabulous day, I think.

Aren’t they adorable?! We kind of pulled this one out of nowhere… Shey wanted to make monster cupcakes with the hair/grass tip that I have for frosting, and so we kind of just went from there. The eyeballs are candy melts and the mouths are a black sugar sheet I had in the cupboard, with white sprinkles for teeth. I think Shey did an awesome job on her little creations! 🙂

On Friday, with Nigel home on his day off from work, we had a Wild Kratts Birthday party for him. I was a bit overwhelmed to think that we would have 8 kids there (including Donny & Shey), but in all honesty it was probably the easiest party I’ve ever done. He had a great time and I think all the other kids did, too. I am just glad it is over!

This was one of our games… with platypus power. It was just the traditional egg&spoon race. Hilarious when they’re so little and don’t understand that they’re even racing and really can’t hold the egg on the spoon!

This was our cheetah power game… they each had a tail and had to chase each other trying to get everyone else’s tail. This lasted a lot longer than I thought it would… some of those boys were FAST!!!

This was spider power… I got a pinata that has the pull strings rather than one you have to hit with a stick, so they each pulled a ‘spider web string’ to get their food. Donny requested a pinata, so this was the only way I could think of to incorporate it into an animal power.

Shark power… they had to ‘swim’ through the balloons to find an ocean animal (stuffed animal) on the other side and then ‘swim back.’ Donny was super excited about this one, and went a little crazy, but it was fun to have him enjoy it so much.

This was our “Tortuga HQ.” Each kid got to punch a button to find out what animal power we would get next. This was also a request from Donny as he had a punching wall at his last birthday party. This year we went heavy duty and made it out of MDF board and felt bags so it would be reusable. It didn’t take much longer to make it this way rather than a one-time-use out of foam board, and everyone seems to LOVE a punching wall, so I’m sure we will use it time and time again!

Donny with his cake. This was quite an ordeal of itself! We were trying to just find an animal themed cake at the grocery store, but nothing was working, so I had to make one instead. There weren’t any ideas on Pinterest or Google that I really loved, but I found one with a somewhat similar idea to this one and ran with it & made it my own. I think it turned out pretty well. I went with marshmallow fondant, which I normally don’t make, but I went to a fondant class a few weeks ago and she swore by it, so I attempted it once again. It never got hard, but it tastes like marshmallows, so my kids loved it. They picked the real fondant off Shey’s cake and threw it all away, so I was happier, I guess, that they at least thought this was edible!

Rhett got cut out of the picture… sorry dude… but this was the gang. NOTE: press & seal over the cups DOES work, thank you pinterest! I couldn’t find the Solo cups with lids in Brigham, so I tried this idea that I had seen on pinterest a while back and sure enough it worked. It wasn’t the classiest looking, but saved me from a bunch of pre-K kids spilling chocolate milk all over the place!

And my two kiddos with their Creature Power Suits on. You can’t tell from this picture, but maybe you can see in earlier ones… the biggest circle actually has a layer of clear vinyl sewed on it, creating a pocket so that they can put their creature power discs in them. These were a few days of work, but well worth it to me. I went with fleece so I didn’t have to sew them, and I hot glued all the felt and velcro on, so all I had to sew was the vinyl circle… not too bad! Donny loved his party and that was really the most important part to me. (I’m just glad the details all worked out, too!)

Post birthday celebrations:

We had a halloween cookie decorating activity we went to with our city library on Saturday. It was fun for the kids to get to make sugar cookies. We haven’t (other than birthday cake) had much sweets in the house for the last six weeks, so I think they were pretty excited to do it.

So there was this cookie cutter and none of us knew what it was supposed to be exactly, but after I put yellow frosting on it I thought it looked like a pregnant banana. So, that is what it is… Donny has told me multiple times in the last two days how much he loves the pregnant banana and how he could never eat it because he loves it so much. For me, I just feel like I know how she feels! We are getting excited to bring a new baby into our family, and we are counting down the days until I can stop being pregnant!

And… we spent our Saturday afternoon at the Trampoline Park in Logan. The kids love this place. I was jealous that I couldn’t jump in there with them, but knew that if I jumped into that foam pit then BEST case scenario I’d pee my pants… WORST case this baby would pop out and then we’d all be in trouble! So, Nigel and I just watched from the sidelines this time.

I love my family. I love being with them and am so nervous to start over with another one, but I know that she will only add joy to what we already have. I am so blessed to have my kids and my husband… they bring purpose to my life. They are my strength, they cause me the most pain and the most joy all at the same time, and I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.